Deputy PM Assen Vassilev tells BNT: We are going to new elections and we will win them

"I wasn't surprised. This was the pre-determined turn of events". This is how Deputy Prime Minister Assen Vassilev commented on the no-confidence vote in the programme "After the Vote" on BNT on June 22.

PM Kiril Petkov's government toppled in parliamentary no-confidence vote

"Plan B" of "We Continue the Change" is to go to elections and win them again. Vassilev believes that they will even improve their result from last time because the Bulgarian people have seen a very clear choice.

"The choice is to continue living as before, with the same people, in the same way that has made us the poorest country with the greatest inequalities in the EU, or to live in a normal European way. The other thing that the people saw, and what scared the Movement for rights and Freedoms and GERB the most, is that there is an alternative, and that alternative today was three votes away from success. In the next Parliament this alternative will have a majority".

However, "We Continue the Change" will try to garner a new majority within the current Parliament, with Kiril Petkov nominated as Prime Minister again.

If a majority can be gathered within this Parliament for such a policy, in which "the funds reach the people and not theprivate drawers", a cabinet may be formed, including among the "new 4-party coalition", Asen Vassilev said.

"They doomed the election of parliamentary Speaker to failure after they removed Nikola Minchev from the post, obviously they have no candidate for the position. They obviously have no intention of making a new cabinet, which I think is good for Bulgaria."

"It is better to go to elections so that the public can clearly say: ‘We want to support the policy that GERB has been pursuing for the past 15 years in favour of a few selected companies getting billion-dollar contracts, and everything else to be on the back burner’, or the policy that we started to pursue and for which GERB, MRF and "Vazrazhdane" are attacking us," he said.

In his words, “There is Such a People” left the coalition after being faced with a decision whether the billions should go to pensioners or to GERB construction companies and chose the latter.

"This is Bulgarian taxpayers' money. We have a very clear choice where this money should go. There is no problem for it to go to construction, but there are problems for it to go for construction where 80% of the contracts are disguised major repairs, these repairs are without guarantees, at three times higher prices."

Vassilev said that in six months the ministry of regional development should have organised new procedures and chosen new contractors, but this has not been done.

With good organisation, eight days would be enough to adopt the budget update, Vassilev added. However, there is no way to vote only on the social part of the budget without voting on the main part.